ENGT5115: Climate Change and Sustainable Development Analysis

This report investigates the multifaceted impacts of climate change on sustainable development, focusing on the causes, effects, and potential mitigation strategies. It highlights the link between industrial advancements and environmental consequences, particularly the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. The report addresses key research questions regarding the causes and effects of climate change, the vulnerability of less developed countries, and the role of the global energy sector in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Utilizing secondary research, including academic journals and government reports, the analysis examines the adverse effects on agricultural production, tourism, and economic growth, especially in developing nations. The report discusses the United Nations' SDGs, particularly Goal 13 (Climate Action), and the challenges in achieving these goals due to resource limitations and financial constraints. It emphasizes the rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, and their impact on ecosystems, agricultural activities, and human livelihoods. The report concludes by underscoring the urgent need for global cooperation and innovative solutions to address climate change and ensure a sustainable future.

Running head: CLIMATE CHANGE AND FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Climate Change and Future of Sustainable Development
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction
Sustainable development has multiple aspects. It has become a matter of concern in the
modern world. As the world has been experiencing progress and advancement in various fields,
such as, economies, technologies, etc., the environment is also facing the pros and cons of these
advancements and developments. On one hand, the economies are experiencing massive growth
and development, and on the other hand, the environment is facing the consequences of the
development in various fields of the economy, especially in the industrial sector. Climate change
is one of the outcomes of the massive developments in the living environment of people. With
rapid increase in industries, manufacturing, energy production, automobile sector, there has been
massive increase in the level of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere that is contributing in
global warming and climate change (Harvey 2018). The effect of this phenomenon is visible
quite sooner than expected. As mentioned by the United Nations, a warm climatic condition will
affect the availability of all the basic necessities of life, such as, food security, fresh water,
energy, and fresh air (Sustainabledevelopment.un.org 2020)The global development agenda of
the countries and the United Nations include measures to adapt and mitigate the effects of
climate change. The association between the phenomenon of climate change and the sustainable
development is quite strong. It has been observed that the less developed countries are facing the
adverse effects in the maximum manner and they are least capable of coping with the expected
shocks to the economic, social and natural systems.
This report will describe the adverse effects of climate change on the global economies
and the future of sustainable development in regards to the climate change. The paper will
present a research report that will deal with few important research questions, contextual to the
above mentioned topic. The discussion will contain a comprehensive methodology adopted to

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get the answers to the research questions, critical analysis, collection of data, its analysis and
discussion and conclusion.
The research questions that will shape the discussion of this research report are:
1) What are the causes and effects of climate change?
2) Why are the less developed countries more likely to be adversely affected by the
consequences of climate change?
3) How can the global energy sector contribute in mitigating the impact of climate change
and implement measures for sustainable development?
The aim of this research report is to illustrate the adverse effects of climate change that are
affecting the sustainability of the world, especially the less developed countries, and the potential
measures that could be adopted by the countries to achieve the sustainable development goals
(SDGs) designed by the United Nations. Secondary research will be conducted for this report.
Methodology/ critical analysis
The research report is based on secondary research. Secondary information are those
which are already published in authentic secondary sources, such as, books, journals, news
articles, government reports, databases, and publications, etc. (Johnston 2017). There have been
numerous researches and related articles on the impact of climate change on the sustainability
issue and those will be explored to find the answers to the research questions.
Agovino et al. (2019) pointed out the most conspicuous impact of climate change, which
is the changes in the agricultural production. They scholars identified a negative bidirectional
association between the climate change phenomena and sustainable agriculture. On one hand,

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agricultural sector contributes a large quantity of the GHG emissions into the climate, and on the
other hand, due to the GHG emission and accumulation, there is significant changes in the
weather conditions affecting the seasonal phenomena, like rainfall, and that hampers the natural
agricultural production cycles. This is increasing the food insecurity across the world, especially
in the less developed countries, which are not adequately equipped to deal with these changes in
the food production.
Siwar et al. (2019) cited the example of Malaysian agricultural sector in the context of
climate change and its impact on the economy. Strong circular linkages have been found
between the agricultural sustainability, poverty and climate change challenges in Malaysian
economy. The authors have examined and found that the changes in climatic conditions are
major causes for growing food crisis not only in Malaysia, but also all over the world. The events
of severe food crisis have emphasized on the necessity of monitoring and ensuring agricultural
sustainability. Along with consistent changes in the climate, the sudden natural disasters also
result in severe damages to the overall sustainability of agricultural production. Due to these
sudden disasters, the global demand for food products increases and most of the countries,
especially the poor and less developed countries struggle to meet the domestic demand for food.
Malaysian agricultural sector, which is highly dependent on rice production, has been found to
be in risk due to different types of climate variability, such as, temperature fluctuations,
uncertainty in seasonal rainfall, decrease in efficiency, increase in the insects and diseases in the
seeds. All of these factors are found to have negative impact on the production level. At the same
time, the agricultural sector has been contributing in the accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere
creating a circular impact.

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Paramati, Alam and Chen (2017) compared the effects of tourism on the CO2 emission
and economic growth in the developed and developing countries. Increase in tourism implies
growth in the transportation, energy demands, and food requirement and hence, it has positive
impact on the economic growth in both the developed and developing countries. However, it has
also been noticed that increase in tourism also leads to increased level of CO2 emission, although
the impact is decreasing faster in the developed countries than in the developing countries.
Hence, level of economic development enables the countries to take adequate measures to deal
with climate change challenges more efficiently.
According to Chatterjee and Dinda (2016), climate change has more adverse effects in
the less developed countries in terms of poverty, economic inequality, green infrastructure,
international trade and human health. These countries are not sufficiently equipped to tackle the
climate change challenges due to lack of resources and capital and that affects the overall
economic growth of these countries. As highlighted by Tol (2018), the long term impact of the
climate change will be negative and that will be significantly greater in the poorer, less
developed, hotter and the lower-lying nations. The measures for poverty reduction are
complementary to the measures for reducing GHG emissions for decreasing the effects of
climate change, and if the climate change challenges are not tackled efficiently, those might trap
more people in poverty. Hence, sustainability will be severely hampered due to climate change,
especially in the poorer countries.

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Analysis and discussion
The United Nations has designed 17 SDGs which are aimed to address various aspects of
the economy that are significant for achieving long term development and making the world a
better place to live for the current as well as for the future generation.
Figure 1: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
(Source: Sustainabledevelopment.un.org 2020)
Figure 1 shows the 17 sustainable development goals made by the United Nations. Among the 17
goals, Climate Action is the 13th goal that is meant for addressing the climate change related
challenges.
The climate related concern and responses were started by the UN countries in 1992 Rio
Earth Summit. The Rio Convention adopted the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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A framework was developed in that convention to stabilize the atmospheric concentration of the
greenhouse gases (GHGs) for shunning the highly dangerous anthropogenic intervention with the
climatic system. Since the establishment in 1994, the UNFCCC now has 197 member countries.
The Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015, which aimed to keep the increase in global
temperature much below 2 degrees Celsius in this century and take efforts to limit the rise of
temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels
(Sustainabledevelopment.un.org 2020). According to IIED.org (2015), the 13th SDG is aimed at
strengthening the resilience to the climate related hazards. However, achieving this goal is
subject to the limitations like dearth of resources and information, and the physiological limits.
For example, the coral reefs are sources of food and livelihood in several small islands, and
preservation of over 10% of those reefs around the world would need controlling the warming to
less than 1.5 to 1.3 degrees Celsius. According to the scientists, additional USD 2-3 trillion
investments are required for meeting the SDG of climate action. It is more difficult in the high
emission sectors as the costs would be higher for implementing the measures. It has been
observed that in Africa, the measures for limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius
would cost around USD 35 billion a year by 2050, which is 1% of the GDP of Africa by 2100,
and in case of limiting temperature rise to 3.5-4 degrees Celsius, the cost would be around USD
50 billion and that would be approximately 7% of the GDP by 2100 (IIED.org 2015). Thus, the
adaptation gap can be attributed to the broader development gap and the more the climate actions
are delayed, the more would be the deficits. This indicates that the less developed countries face
more challenges to implement measures to achieve the SDGs than the developed countries.
Climate change, as stated by Crate and Nuttall (2016), refers to the significant changes in
the pattern of the average weather conditions, such as, average weather getting too much warmer

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or colder, too much rainfall or too much drought, happening for several decades. This is different
than changes in the average natural weather conditions as it lasts for much longer time and
hence, has more conspicuous impacts on the natural environment and living conditions of
people. The most prominent effect of climate change is the global warming. Nrdc.org (2020)
highlights that global warming refers to the continuous increase in the average temperature of the
earth. In the past five decades, the average temperature of the planet has increased at a much
faster rate than has been recorded in the history and as was expected by the scientists. It has also
been noticed that the trend of rising temperature of the planet is accelerating. Since 2000, NASA
recorded 15 hottest years on earth in its 134 years’ databases.
Increase and accumulation of carbon di-oxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs)
and air pollutants in the atmosphere is the major cause of rising temperature of earth. These
gases and pollutants absorb the sunlight and the solar radiations, bounced back from the earth’s
surface, and keep the heat trapped for years to centuries, and cause the planet to get warmer. This
is known as the greenhouse effect (GHG effect). According to Nrdc.org (2020), in the United
States, the burn of the fossil fuel for electricity generation contributes to the increase in heat
trapping air pollutants and it is the largest source by adding around two billion tons of CO2 each
year. The power units that burn coals are identified as the biggest polluters of atmosphere and the
transportation sector is the second largest, generating around 1.7 billion tons of CO2 each year.
Not only in the United States, but almost in all the countries the energy sector and the transport
sector contribute maximum in the GHG accumulation in the atmosphere. Thus, as part of the
sustainable development initiatives, countries are taking measures to reduce the CO2 and other
harmful gas emissions.

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Global warming is strongly associated with climate change. The increasing temperature
of the planet is resulting in longer and warmer heat waves, heavier and untimely rainfall,
stronger hurricanes, more frequent droughts, melting and retreating of glaciers and rising sea
levels (Harvey 2018). These climatic events have been affecting the natural habitats of animals
and plants, the agricultural activities and lifestyle of people in a severe manner. Along with the
land temperature, the temperature of the ocean is rising too and thus, the tropical storms are
picking up more energies. The frequency of high category storms has increased significantly in
the past few years, causing havoc wrecks to the environment and habitats. On the other hand,
some parts of the world is suffering from extreme heat waves, causing droughts, and some parts
are experiencing excessive rainfalls, causing floods. All these events are hampering the balance
of the natural environment and ecosystems and agricultural production and thereby resulting in
food insecurity, malnourishment, diseases and deaths of people, animals and plants. The most
recent example of extreme heat and its effect is seen in Australia, which is extremely affected by
the devastating bushfires. Nearly 5 million animals have died, millions of people had to evacuate
their homes, and around 24 people including some firefighters have died (Doherty, Davidson and
McGowan 2020). Hence, climate change not only has environmental impacts, but also has
economic and social effects and health consequences. The Paris Agreement has pledged to
address the factors causing temperature increase of the planet and keep the temperature increase
under control by reducing GHG emissions.
According to Undp.org (2020), the least developed economies are the most vulnerable to
the effects of climate change due to the reason that their growth related activities is severely
dependent on the climate sensitive industries and they lack the capacity to recover from the

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climate related stresses. Thus, UNDP emphasizes on the capacity development in the least
developed countries as a first measure towards achieving the climate action SDG.
The Government of Canada mentions that the adverse effects of climate change on the
developing countries are far more than on the developed countries. It is highlighted that the
climate change can potentially reverse the significant development achievements in those
nations. As per the reports of World Health Organization (WHO), by 2030, additional around
250,000 deaths per year would be caused by effects of climate change, such as, heat stress,
malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria (international.gc.ca 2020). In the less developed nations, the
females are affected disproportionately due to the negative effects of the climate change. This
increases the existing social inequality and creates threats to the physical, social and economic
wellbeing of the female members of the society. Thus, experts have observed that the negative
effects of climate change on the women, especially those who are dependent on the natural
resources for the livelihood, are increased due to the development gaps and gender inequalities.
Thus, Canada has taken a commitment to support the vulnerable countries against the adverse
effects of climate change and announced a $2.65 billion climate finance. As of 2019, Canada has
already delivered more than $1.5 billion for the actions against climate change in the less
developed economies and it will deliver the rest by March 2021 (international.gc.ca 2020).
According to the United Nations (2019), the unprecedented negative effects of climate
change and unexpected acceleration of those events are creating disproportionate burden on the
developing nations. Hence, the measures include reduction of GHG emissions, forest
conservations, monitoring fresh water sources and reduction of air pollution. Some instances
from some developing countries are cited by the UN, such as, Botswana faced the challenge of
climate related drought, resulting in fall in agricultural production and rise in food insecurity. It

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aims to reduce the GHG emissions by 15% by 2030, although the efforts would fail if adequate
partnership assistance, in terms of financial support, technology transfer and capacity
development, is not obtained.
The examples of Tajikistan, Malaysia, Greece, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia,
Sri Lanka and many other developing nations have also been cited. In the past few decades, the
area of glaciers in Tajikistan has reduced significantly and at a much faster rate due to global
warming. This is raising concerns about rising sea levels and decreasing sources of fresh water.
Malaysia has increased palm oil production to make it sustainable by 2020, which would take
care of loss of biodiversity, GHG emissions and destruction of the wildlife habitats. Democratic
Republic of Congo has pledged to reduce GHG emissions by 17% between 2020 and 2030 and
keeping the forest area at 63% of the national territory. The officials of Greece reported damages
to the natural and cultural heritage sites due to adverse changes in the climatic conditions. It has
been notified that poverty, lack of adequate resources and insufficient capacities are the major
factors in the developing countries, which aggravate the adverse impacts of the climate change.
The Centre for Global Development has shown an interesting fact regarding the sources
of climate change phenomena. It showed that historically, the developed countries are mainly
responsible for GHG emissions, global warming and climate change. Since, the concentration of
wealth and industries occurred in the developed countries of the United States and the European
Union, the 79% of the GHG emissions from 1850 to 2011 occurred from these countries
(cgdev.org 2020). However, the increased accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere affects the
poor and less developed countries more than the countries which increased the GHG level
historically. The countries and their contribution of GHG into the atmosphere are shown in
Figure 2 below.

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Figure 2: Countries contributing in climate change
(Source: cgdev.org 2020)
Thus, it can be said that climate change has quite severe adverse effects on the sustainability. The
less developed countries are more vulnerable in this regard. Not only the environment is affected
by climate change, but also the people’s lifestyle, health, economic and social conditions in the
developed countries. Thus, unless proper measures are adopted, climate change would lead to
massive disasters in the coming few years.

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Conclusion
The future of sustainability is dependent on various elements and climate change is a
major one among the others. It has been noticed that historically the developed nations
contributed the GHG in a very high volume, which is now majorly affecting the natural
environment, resources and lives of people in the developing countries, in terms of drought,
flood, heat waves or extreme cold weather, global warming, rise of sea levels, retreat of glaciers,
deforestation due to wild fires etc. Thus agricultural production is majorly affected negatively,
causing various challenges like food insecurity, excess demand of food in domestic market,
health issues for people, many diseases, which are also expected to increase the death rates in the
future. Thus, it is evident that climate change is a highly significant concern for the world and
the SDG of climate change must be achieved by both the developed and developing nations.
https://thefuturescentre.org/fos2019/#migration-and-the-climate-crisis

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